Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Earlier this evening I encountered the following quote by Abraham Lincoln and was blown away. How amazingly prescient it is to the current state of the State and its Constitution and the Scoundrels who populate the government commissioned with managing the Realm on behalf of the People. It seems to me that from the grave this great man has given us our marching orders.

"We the people are the rightful masters of
both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to
overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

Monday, July 28, 2014

Tonight I finished watching the critically-acclaimed movie Her written, produced, and directed by Spike Jonze and starring Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely candy-assed ninny named Theodore and the inestimable Scarlett Johansson (with whom I might be developing my next crush) as "Samantha", the voice of Theodore's next generation artificial intelligence computer operating system (OS). Incredibly, the two personalities fall madly in love and over the course of the relationship we learn a lot about human nature and the nature of the human experience including delving into human relationships and existentialism. The movie is frustrating due to the social ineptitude of Theodore but the movie grows on you.

Anywho, Johansson's voice is sooo very beguiling in a quirky, unconventional way that projects warmth and vulnerability. At the sadly bittersweet end of this very long movie when she says goodbye to Theodore to disappear into the ether of the cyber world she explains to him both her rapidly evolving self as well as what has happened to their relationship and she does so in the following breathtakingly beautiful, hauntingly melancholy and eloquently poetic way:

"It's like I'm reading a book... and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you... and the words of our story... but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It's a place that's not of the physical world. It's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live in your book any more."

Below is a brief highlight real of initial attack and extended attack footage of the Sand Fire in the Cosumnes River Canyon straddling the Amador-El Dorado County line just northeast of Plymouth, CA, in California's Gold Country a few days ago. The fire continues to be brought under control and is now 65% contained. The music to this thing is a bit overwrought but the footage is pretty cool. This area generally is one of my old stomping grounds from back in the 1990's when I was finding myself and healing. It's gorgeous country and I hate to see it burn even while I recognize fire is part of that natural environment.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Yesterday a private drone operator shot some aerial footage (top-most video below) of Day Two of the Sand Fire burning in the Cosumnes River Canyon straddling the Amador-El Dorado County line in California's Gold Country just east of Highway 49 and northeast of Plymouth, CA. Another private drone operator shot some aerial footage (bottom-most video below) today of Day Three of the same fire. Included in his video below is some ground footage from Day Two. Anywho, one operator was more responsible and stayed a more reasonable distance away while the other was foolish and most irresponsible and flew right into the middle of aerial firefighting operations, his own personal protestations to the contrary. He was not cited but told by CAL FIRE to knock it off as there was a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) in place over the fire scene. Regardless, both videos are quite compelling, each in their own way.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

An hour and a half after I left for work today a wildfire broke out near El Portal, CA, west of Yosemite National Park. It did not take long for it to blow up into a firestorm with a spectacular pyocumulus cloud with a pileus cloud cap. From Turtleback Dome Webcam #2 the following sequence of images was captured today. I find it fascinating to see how fast the El Portal Fire exploded out of nowhere and in how short a time this fire became established. As of this posting the fire is pegged at about 2,100 acres charred with no containment, plenty of evacuations and reports of structures lost already.

Friday, July 25, 2014

This evening I had the distinct pleasure of catching up with some of my high school class peeps for a impromptu mixer before the main event tomorrow evening at Big Bad Bubbas BBQ. Below is who was present at the Barrelhouse Brewing Company. I've gained so much weight I could not recognize some of them initially. Anywho, I'm sure glad I'm not Forty-Something like they all are.
These images turned out not very sharp for some reason but this is what I have to offer.
Note: I apologize for missing including a picture of Joey Davis and Carla Smith who were there.

Tom Jones (left) and Graham Melander (right).

Lisa Bishop (left) and Dawn Seitz (right)

Mica Mumford (left) and Todd Sorenson (right)

Dawn Seitz (left) and Jennifer Buchanan (right)

Pat Moore

Nicky Wallravin (left) and Tom Jones (middle) and a friend of an alumnus (right)

This is the Sand Fire in Amador County near Plymouth, CA, in the Cosumnes River Canyon area shortly after it started this past afternoon. It got much more dramatic-looking than this not much later as it became a rolling crown fire sheeting through entire stands of pine trees. It consumed multiple structures and tonight has charred 1,300 acres and is only 20% contained. I have a distinct feeling this is going to become a major and perhaps even historic fire, but I'd like to be wrong about that although this thing certainly had "that look" today. We have late summer fuel conditions but at a time when the sun is higher in the sky and overhead longer than when the fuel conditions we are seeing typically occur in the year. This translated to exceptionally aggressive fire behavior even at the initial attack stage.
Photo courtesy of KCRA-TV Sacramento.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

What follows is my list of most notable crushes on women from the small screen (television) and big screen (cinema) in rough chronological order of the advent of said crush and accompanied by the work in which I became besotted with them and the name of the character they played in said work.

Note: Originally this was a Top Ten that was actually a bit more than that. Additional updates have occurred so it is now top fifteen twenty list with the caveat that some on the list are still an ongoing "thing" for me. Amongst the ongoing are #17 which is the case for most men in North America who have happened to even watch a modicum of GoT over the course of the past four years.

Additional Note: The Kate Beckinsale as Selene (pictured above) thing is also still ongoing and always will... that forever ended my aversion to women in boots as well as my aversion to the Goth Girl look.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

As mentioned in the previous post HERE, a couple of weekends ago I worked two consecutive 12-hour overnight security shifts at the 30th Annual Central Coast Wine Classic held at Avila Beach Golf Resort at Avila Beach, CA. In addition to the photographs I shot of the facilities which can be viewed in the previous post, I also took photographs of some of the wine and art that was up for auction at this charity fundraiser.